


Coffee Constellations

by airedis



Category: VIXX
Genre: M/M, best friends neo is my lifeblood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:58:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1584158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airedis/pseuds/airedis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Today your barista is: hella fucking gay"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee Constellations

**Author's Note:**

> written for a prompt at forvixx. i had a ton of fun thinking about this

Taekwoon liked working at the coffee shop just off campus. He liked the smell of coffee, the taste, he liked making it and drinking it and going home smelling like it. If you asked, he would tell you that the thing he liked the least about his job was not the work or the coffee, but his coworkers. (But he would be lying. Very bady.) Taekwoon worked at MangoSix along with four other students from the nearby university and they were all quite...unique.  
  
He worked the most with Sanghyuk and Wonsik, the two other baristas on his shift, and he'd been the one to train Sanghyuk when the younger boy had started working there a few months ago. Sanghyuk was the youngest there and, regardless of anything anyone said, he was a sweetheart with a sharp tongue and and even sharper wit. Wonsik, on the other hand, had a tendency to be a little lazy and was arguably the most creative one out of them. He was often asked to make signature drinks every couple of weeks and he took great pride in coming up with strange and delicious new items. Then there was Hongbin, the assistant pastry chef. He was a slightly awkward boy who mostly worked in the back making the desserts and had a habit of bringing the food out to the dessert case very quietly and unassumingly, lest some of the girls in the cafe see him.  
  
And the ringleader of them all was Hakyeon, the afternoon manager and a generally loud and welcoming person. He'd roped Taekwoon into working there back when he'd still been a barista himself and had soon after become one of the managers. He watched over them all well and he did a great job of making sure everything ran smoothly.  
  
He was also the bane of Taekwoon's existence.  
  
During the past Valentine's Day, Hakyeon had convinced them that it was store policy to wear these stupid little bobble heart headband monstrosities. They were hot pink and sparkly and they flopped around Taekwoon's head for two hours before he caught Hakyeon laughing in the back room, suspiciously devoid of the ugly headband. Taekwoon had ended up tearing the thing off his head and declaring war on Hakyeon when he realized that there was no policy, it was just Hakyeon playing a little trick on them for his own amusement.  
  
This had started a string of prank wars that somehow ended up dragging even Wonsik, Sanghyuk, and (occasionally) even Hongbin.  
  
On slow days, Taekwoon and Sanghyuk engaged in their favorite pastime: stacking things on Wonsik's head while he slept. It all began one particularly slow, rainy day when Wonsik fell asleep behind the counter and Sanghyuk had the idea to see how many things they could balance on Wonsik's forehead before he either woke up or it toppled over - apparently he had been watching a lot of cat videos the day before. So they'd started with small things like business cards and then, when Wonsik hadn't woken up, they'd started piling some scones on top of a stack of napkins. Wonsik had woken up when Hongbin had walked in and started laughing but whenever he fell asleep at the counter, all it took was one glance between Taekwoon and Sanghyuk and they would set to work again. (Their record was at twenty seven half and half cups and they were pretty damn proud of it.)  
  
But it was last week when Taekwoon had pulled off his most successful prank to date. It had been a fairly busy day so Hakyeon had been out in the front supervising more than was usually needed and Taekwoon had begun his attack by very carefully clipping a small bow into Hakyeon's hair under the guise of fixing his bangs for him. He then proceeded to very slowly and surreptitiously stick little paper hearts and stickers all over the back of Hakyeon's uniform. Luckily, he was a pretty patient guy - at least when it came to things he was determined to do - so by the end of the day he had successfully covered the entirety of the back of Hakyeon's shirt in cute little stickers. Unluckily for Hakyeon, he had been walking around the whole day, in front of customers, covered in said stickers. So instead of getting mad at him, as maybe some other bosses would do, Taekwoon knew he could anticipate a counter attack from Hakyeon.  
  
One of the reasons that Taekwoon hadn't gotten into trouble for covering someone who was essentially his boss in little pastel pink paper hearts, aside from the fact that Hakyeon was a pretty easy going guy all things considered, was that Taekwoon and Hakyeon were actually really good friends. During the almost three years that Taekwoon had worked there, Hakyeon had made a place for himself by Taekwoon's side, right from the time they worked the counter together. Despite the fact that Hakyeon was loud and clingy and perhaps the exact opposite of Taekwoon, they had become extremely close. (And if you tried hard enough and asked Taekwoon on a good day, he may even, reluctantly, admit that Hakyeon was his best friend.)  
  
It was probably due to the fact that Taekwoon was so close to Hakyeon, and consequently to the rest of the afternoon shift, that everyone knew that he was absolutely and without a doubt, 100% gay. He basically ended up just telling everyone - in part, because it wasn't a really big deal to him whether people knew or not, but mostly because of Hakyeon. See, Hakyeon, like a true mother hen, was always concerned about Taekwoon's well being so, being a good friend, he had been trying to look out for him. This concern had manifested in Hakyeon's attempts to try and set Taekwoon up with any cute girl that kept coming back to the cafe until Taekwoon had flat out told him, "I have no interest in girls".  
  
Instead of backing down, Hakyeon had renewed his attmepts in trying to set Taekwoon up with any cute  _boy_  that was a repeat customer but Taekwoon had not been having any of it. Due to the fact that he'd kept shutting down any and all potential dates, Hakyeon had figured that the situation called for something big.  
  
This something big came in the form of a surprise when Taekwoon walked in on Thursday afternoon, but it was something that he wouldn't realize until a few hours later. Now, Taekwoon came into the cafe from the back entrance so he never saw the specials board that was placed on the floor directly in front of the counter. Because he never saw the specials board, he never saw the interesting and, well, _different_  message that Hakyeon had written up for the day. It wasn't until he was handing a drink to the third boy that was grinning at him in a slightly alarming manner that Taekwoon started to get confused.  
  
"You're pretty popular today, aren't you?" Wonsik asked with a sly grin. Taekwoon just shrugged.  
  
As he blended a frappuccino, he wondered why so many arguaby cute boys were winking at him. Of course, they were all completely unsuited to him but even so, he wasn't used to this kind of thing happening as often as it was today. Not to be vain, but Taekwoon knew that other people happened to find him handsome, for whatever reason. Maybe it was how quiet he was, maybe it was his focused stare - he wasn't really sure but he  _was_  accustomed to girls blushing up at him shyly (and having no idea how to deal with them, frankly, but that was another problem).  
  
By the time Taekwoon's shift was half way over, he'd gotten - and confusedly turned down - at least half a dozen lunch propositions and one daring boy's name. When he took his break ten minutes later, a fresh latte in hand, he walked out to his normal table near the window and was about to sit down. Then Taekwoon saw the sign. It read:  
  


" _Today your barista is:_  
1\. Hella fucking gay.  
2\. Desperately single.

For your drink today I reccomend:  
You give me your number."

  
It was unmistakably in Hakyeon's handwriting. Suddenly all of the day's events, all of the boys making passes at him, stammering at him and nervously asking for his name, made sense. Taekwoon's face turned red, his cheeks burning as he turned on his heel and stomped back behind the counter again and into the back room. His face was bright red as he roughly set down his drink and pulled Hakyeon into a headlock.  
  
"Cha Hakyeon, what the hell are you doing?" he asked gruffly as he ground his knuckles into the top of Hakyeon's head. Today, Sanghyuk was working the register and Wonsik was stuck at the desserts case so Taekwoon was, clearly, the one that was making the coffee and thus, there was absolutely no question as to who the "hella fucking gay" barista was.  
  
"I want you to find someone!" Hakyeon cried, because Taekwoon had worked there for years and Hakyeon knew that he'd never really been with anyone during that time.  
  
Despite anything to the contrary that Taekwoon might say, he and Hakyeon were close and Hakyeon did honestly care for Taekwoon's well being. He told him as much, with Taekwoon's knuckles still digging down into his scalp. He wasn't really that angry with Hakyeon, but he was definitely embarrassed. Taekwoon let him go with a huff, finished his drink, and then went back to work. But he was much more inclined to believe that Hakyeon was telling him the truth when a bespectacled boy walked in and ordered a drink.  
  
He hadn't noticed him at first, being busy behind the counter, but when he called out "Ken", a sort of dorky looking boy who had been sitting near the counter stood up and said, "that's me". The boy had gotten an iced mocha and his fingers were warm as they brushed against Taekwoon's hand when Taekwoon slid the drink across the counter. The boy sat down again after that and he was at the closest table to where Taekwoon worked. Taekwoon could clearly see Ken as he sat there with a book and a pencil and Ken sipped at his drink as he made notes in the margins of the pages.  
  
Ken was really cute and when Taekwoon thought about how warm Ken's fingers were in contrast to the cold drink and it made focusing on work a lot more difficult.  
  
Somewhere near an hour later, the boy was still at the table but his drink was long gone. Just minutes before Taekwoon's shift ended, the boy came up and ordered another mocha. When Taekwoon called out "Ken" again, his eyes went embarrassingly easily to the boy who was leaned up against the pick up counter. At his name, Ken turned towards Taekwoon, leaned in a little closer, and said, "you can call me Jaehwan."  
  
Ken - no,  _Jaehwan_  smiled and headed back to his seat but Taekwoon's face grew warm when he looked down at an inconspicuous piece of paper left behind on the counter. He picked it up and stared at it, disbelieving. It was Jaehwan's number and Taekwoon's face positively burned. Minseok, one of the baristas for the night shift, tapped Taekwoon on the shoulder and said he could clock out. Taekwoon stared at him a little disoriented and didn't move. Sanghyuk poked his head over and looked at Taekwoon.  
  
"Hey, you okay?" he asked, eyebrows drawing together. Taekwoon gave a dazed nod and then made his way into the back room.  
  
He was still shuffling his feet when Hakyeon asked him something or other, clearly concerned, and it broke the fog in Taekwoon's head enough for him to reach his hands out towards Hakyeon. With a flaming face, he attempted to strangle Hakyeon amidst the older boy's confused laughter. When Hakyeon had managed to pry Taekwoon's fingers off his neck, Taekwoon stalked out to the front of the counter and lugged the specials board into the back.  
  
He thought he could feel Jaehwan's eyes on him the whole time.  
  
When Taekwoon came back out he had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket and, for a guy who was over six feet tall with such broad, sturdy shoulders, he looked pretty unimposing and almost...shy. And cute. Jaehwan looked up when Taekwoon stopped at his table and Taekwoon felt nervous, his eyes shifting, and his gaze stopped on Jaehwan's face for only a second before it darted this way and that.  
  
Jaehwan leaned his cheek on his hand with a small smile and asked, a little coyly, "yes?"  
  
Taekwoon's head kind of ducked down and he sort of mumbled, in a much softer and higher voice than the one he used to call out orders, "would you like to go get something to eat...Jaehwan?"  
  
Taekwoon lifted his head a bit, just in time to see Jaehwan break out into a wide, bright smile. As Jaehwan agreed, gathering up his things and getting up to stand next to Taekwoon, Taekwoon felt like Hakyeon's little prank might have done a bit of good after all.  
  
Needless to say, when Taekwoon came back into work the next day and he had a dark splotch on his pale, pale skin, just shy of being hidden  _just_  under the collar of his shirt, Hakyeon noticed. And because Hakyeon noticed, they all noticed.  
  
"You've got a hickey!" Hakyeon crowed at him, hanging over his shoulder and trying to tug at his shirt.  
  
Taekwoon socked him in the arm and finished tying his apron. Hakyeon may as well announce to the whole cafe that Taekwoon had been with a very cute boy last night but that didn't change the fact, perhaps indirectly, Taekwoon had gone out with said very cute boy because of Hakyeon's intermission.  
  
(Maybe Hakyeon was a little helpful sometimes. Maybe.)  
  
You would never hear Taekwoon say that though, not even when Jaehwan stopped by to pick him up after work that day. The second Jaehwan stepped in through the door it was like everyone had honed in on him. Hakyeon and Wonsik began saying "ooh~" in high pitched voices as they poked at him and Sanghyuk made stupid kissy faces at him. Taekwoon closed his eyes, untied his apron and went into the back to get his jacket.  
  
"Have fun on your date!" Hakyeon called to them as they turned to walk out of the cafe. With a laugh, Jaehwan stopped Taekwoon from chucking his phone at Hakyeon's face. Hakyeon, Wonsik, and Sanghyuk were waving obnoxiously at them and even Hongbin had poked his head out of the kitchen to see what was going on.  
  
Jaehwan took Taekwoon's hand and, with a bright smile that Taekwoon quietly returned, led him out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> the title has nothing to do with anything because i am a loser
> 
> if it looks like I have no idea what it's like to work in a coffee shop, that's because i don't oops. also I have no clue about coffee because I don't drink it sorry leo
> 
> there will be more in this verse later because i love it
> 
> (this is the sign btw http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbevvfUw0O1qduyeio1_500.jpg)


End file.
